External Hard Drive

My external hard drive started flashing on and off. I got a message that the files could not be saved and did I want to save it some where else. I did not save it some where else but turned it off. This happened several times.

Now when I try to save files to it it asks if I want to format it. I want to know if I can recover the files from this hard drive and how to do it? Also my keyboard skips letters is there a way to correct this or do I have to buy another board?

When Windows prompt that you should format a partition, it means that DBR (DOS Boot Record) is corrupted. Don't format the partition and recover files, then reformat the partition to use, remember to insert the external drive to the back USB interface in the future.
To recover files, there are many choices. you may search in google, there is an example http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-raw-drive.htm (note: this is commercial tool)
Another way is to repair the partition, after that you can access the partition again.